Behind the scenes in the museum - preventive conservation of the collections.

Preventive conservation is of paramount significance to museums as the safeguarding of national heritage is dependent on it. Before the collections can be presented to the public on a permanent basis, they need to be studied, stored in a suitable place, and often restored.

Preventive conservation comprises a multitude of tasks, which may include moving the collections to new storerooms, assessing their "health", training (as in the Departmental Museum of Antiquities in Rouen) museum staff to increase their awareness of essential everyday preservation tasks, etc.All the above operations have been carried out at the Municipal Museum of Louviers.